26 March 2009

Of course the usual culprits are behind the controversy: the ADL (the Orwellian sounding Anti Defamation League), "Pat Oliphant's outlandish and offensive use of the Star of David in combination with Nazi-like imagery is hideously anti-Semitic," Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman said. "It employs Nazi imagery by portraying Israel as a jack-booted, goose-stepping headless apparition. The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart."

Well, that's exactly right. Israeli policy has neither when it comes to Palestinians.

I would say this to the ADL, that if they don't want to be depicted as Nazis they should stop acting like them!-------------------------------------------------

Another piece of news which really shows the true nature of the settler movement. First some background:

A few weeks ago we read in the Guardian about a "confidential EU report" that "accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of "actively pursuing the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem."

"The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority's credibility and weakening support for peace talks. "Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making," says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem."

Two houses were demolished just before the arrival of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, which caused "a serious disagreement between Israel and the U.S.", but these were not the first demolitions. Back in November 2008 the Al Khurd family were evicted from the house they had lived in since 1956. Mrs. Khurd became a widow when her husband died as a result of the stress of the eviction.

The settler movement has been trying for a long time, since East Jerusalem's occupation in 1967, to get their hands on this valuable land to build 200 'settlement units'. Jonathan Cook reported back in July last year that "Behind the settler families is an organisation known as Nakhalat Shimon, founded by Benny Elon, a former cabinet minister and leader of the Moledet Party, which seeks the expulsion of Palestinians. He recently stated: “ Building Jewish neighbourhoods next to open areas [in Jerusalem] will prevent invasion and illegal construction by Palestinians who live near the Old City." The settlers have recruited a large number of religious supporters because they claim a cave in Sheikh Jarrah as the resting place of a famous rabbi from 2,000 year ago."

Now, however, thanks to the Israeli massacre in Gaza which soured Israeli-Turkish relations, the settlers claim has been shown to be forged, when "lawyers for the families were given access to Ottoman land registry archives in Ankara for the first time."

Jonathan Cook reports: "The problems facing Mrs Khurd and the other residents derive from legal claims by the Sephardi Jewry Association that it purchased Sheikh Jarrah’s land in the 19th century. Settler groups hope to evict all the residents, demolish their homes and build 200 apartments in their place. The location is considered strategic by settler organisations because it is close to the Old City and its Palestinian holy places."

Strategic and valuable.

"Officials in Turkey traced the documents the lawyers requested and provided affidavits that the settlers’ land claims were forged. The search of the Ottoman archives, Mr Abu Ahmad said, had failed to locate any title deeds belonging to a Jewish group for the land in Sheikh Jarrah."

As Cook reports, this is not the first time the settlers have tried to steal land: "Late last year the Associated Press news agency exposed a scam by settlers regarding land on which they have built the Migron outpost, near Ramallah, home to more than 40 Jewish families. The settlers’ documents were supposedly signed by the Palestinian owner, Abdel Latif Sumarin, in California in 2004, even though he died in 1961."

Further to my letter to El Pais, in which I quote John Norris, I wanted to point out Pepe Escobar's article "Liquid War - Welcome to Pipelineistan" which has a very plausible explanation for the war in Kosovo:

"No less important would be the routes pipelines would take in bringing the energy buried in those lands to the West. Where they would be built, the countries they would cross, would determine much in the world to come. And this was where the empire of US military bases (think, for instance, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo) met Pipelineistan (represented, way back in 1999, by the AMBO pipeline).

AMBO, short for Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation, an entity registered in the US, is building a $1.1 billion pipeline, aka "the Trans-Balkan", slated to be finished by 2011. It will bring Caspian oil to the West without taking it through either Russia or Iran. As a pipeline, AMBO fit well into a geopolitical strategy of creating a US-controlled energy-security grid that was first developed by president Bill Clinton's energy secretary Bill Richardson and later by Cheney.

Behind the idea of that "grid" lay a go-for-broke militarization of an energy corridor that would stretch from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia through a series of now independent former SSRs of the Soviet Union to Turkey, and from there into the Balkans (from thence onto Europe). It was meant to sabotage the larger energy plans of both Russia and Iran. AMBO itself would bring oil from the Caspian basin to a terminal in the former SSR of Georgia in the Caucasus, and then transport it by tanker through the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of Burgas, where another pipeline would connect to Macedonia and then to the Albanian port of Vlora.

As for Camp Bondsteel, it was the "enduring" military base that Washington gained from the wars for the remains of Yugoslavia. It would be the largest overseas base the US had built since the Vietnam War. Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root would, with the Army Corps of Engineers, put it up on 400 hectares of farmland near the Macedonian border in southern Kosovo.

Think of it as a user-friendly, five-star version of Guantanamo with perks for those stationed there that included Thai massage and loads of junk food. Bondsteel is the Balkan equivalent of a giant immobile aircraft carrier, capable of exercising surveillance not only over the Balkans but also over Turkey and the Black Sea region (considered in the neo-con-speak of the Bush years "the new interface" between the "Euro-Atlantic community" and the "Greater Middle East").

How could Russia, China, and Iran not interpret the war in Kosovo, then the invasion of Afghanistan (where Washington had previously tried to pair with the Taliban and encourage the building of another of those avoid-Iran, avoid-Russia pipelines), followed by the invasion of Iraq (that country of vast oil reserves), and finally the recent clash in Georgia (that crucial energy transportation junction) as straightforward wars for Pipelineistan?

Though seldom imagined this way in our mainstream media, the Russian and Chinese leaderships saw a stark "continuity" of policy stretching from Bill Clinton's humanitarian imperialism to Bush's "global war on terror".

21 March 2009

The world has been shown the moral degeneration of Israel's storm troopers. Hitler would be proud of them and just imagine the propaganda that would have been generated in the world's press if it had been Palestinians or indeed any Muslims with similar T-shirts about Israeli women and unborn babies. One could be forgiven for thinking that it might just be a few 'rotten apples', but no, this streak runs through the majority of Israeli society, showing just what a sick society it has become. On 14 January 2009 The Jerusalem Post reported a "whopping 94% of the public support or strongly support the operation while 92% think it benefits Israel's security, according to the Tel Aviv University survey".

The revelations centre on t-shirt designs made for soldiers that make light of shooting pregnant Palestinian mothers and children and include images of dead babies and destroyed mosques.

The t-shirts were printed for Israeli soldiers at the end of periods of deployment or training courses and were discovered by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

One, printed for a platoon of Israeli snipers depicts an armed Palestinian pregnant women caught in the crosshairs of a rifle, with the disturbing caption in English: "1 shot 2 kills".

Another depicts a child carrying a gun also in the centre of a target.

"The smaller, the harder," read the words on the t-shirt.

According to a soldier interviewed by the newspaper, the message has a double meaning: "It's a kid, so you've got a little more of a problem, morally and also the target is smaller."

Another shows an Israeli soldier blowing up a mosque and reads "Only God forgives".

Above a ninja figure, yet another shirt bears the slogan "Won't chill until I confirm a kill".

The revelations, coming so soon after Israel's offensive in Gaza in which hundreds of civilians were killed - many of them women and children - are causing outrage.

Perhaps the most shocking design shows a Palestinian mother weeping next to her dead baby's grave, also in the crosshairs of a rifle.

It suggests it would have been better if the child had never been born, with the slogan "Better use Durex".

The controversy follows more revelations by other soldiers about abuses and the shooting of civilians during Israel's offensive during the Gaza offensive.

Ex-soldier and campaigner with Breaking The Silence, Michael Maniken, told Sky News Online this week's revelations suggest a pattern of immoral conduct in the army.

"The army keeps on saying we're talking about a few rotten apples but it seems the army doesn't understand there's a norm in this kind of action," he explained.

"We're hearing about this time and time again and the army seems disconnected from reality."

A spokesman for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) told Sky News Online, the t-shirts were printed on the private initiative of the soldiers and their designs "are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless. This type of humour is unacceptable and should be condemned".

The Israeli military has, as was to be expected, condemned this as "unacceptable" and said the T-shirts "are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless. This type of humour is unacceptable. Commanders are instructed to use disciplinary tools against those who produce T-shirts of this type."

So they consider this to be only a matter of bad taste(!) and "not in accordance with IDF values" yet we read today that it was the high command that gave the orders to kill anyone in certain zones, including women or children.

"Toward the end of the operation there was a plan to go into a very densely populated area inside Gaza City itself. In the briefings they started to talk to us about orders for opening fire inside the city, because as you know they used a huge amount of firepower and killed a huge number of people along the way, so that we wouldn't get hurt and they wouldn't fire on us.

"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons."..."Gilad: "Even before we went in, the battalion commander made it clear to everyone that a very important lesson from the Second Lebanon War was the way the IDF goes in - with a lot of fire. The intention was to protect soldiers' lives by means of firepower. In the operation the IDF's losses really were light and the price was that a lot of Palestinians got killed."

17 March 2009

I saw this photo in the NYT and the thought that immediately struck me was "Whose this gangster and his hired killers?"

Then I started reading the article and laughed out loud when I read the NYT's linguistic acrobatics used to describe the other fascist gangster Avigdor Lieberman: "an often indelicate and outspoken politician whose threatening language aimed at Arabs arouses suspicion and some trepidation abroad". To be fair, she does try to make amends towards the end of the article, although not that well "Mr. Lieberman ran a contentious election campaign that many here and abroad saw as racist, focusing on the question of loyalty of the Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the population."

That sort of language could only come from the the keyboard of a Brit, and there it was, Isabel Kershner's name credited as the author. So who is Kershner when she's at home?

Well, first off, according to Wikipedia she's British, born in Manchester. She's now an Israeli resident married to Hirsch Goodman, senior fellow at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, which in 2006 called for "military action to stop Iran's nuclear program." This is still considered a "serious" option by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashke-Nazi.

According to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com: "In 2002 and 2003, The New Republic was one of the leading crusaders for an attack on Iraq, railing against what it called "the intellectual incoherence of the liberal war critics." By December 2006 it had admitted this: "The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war."

There are of course unscrupulous propagandists who accuse her of being a 'liberal' for describing the Likud party as "far-right-wing", and the self-annointed spokesman of the monster raving loonies of the illegal settler movement (who have the chutzpah to use a 3,000 year old fairy story as the basis for an immoral and illegal land grab), Yisrael Medad, describes her as "a bit biased", "misleading", and her writing as "troublesome"...

For once, I agree with him.

Update: 21/3/09:

Mr.Medad is the settlers' propagandist-in-chief. I present you with his laughable performance on BBC's Hardtalk:

Going back to the Freeman Affair in the US, Philip Giraldi has an excellent piece exposing the WaPo's extreme right wing Israeli support.

-----------------------------------------------

And in Iraq, US troops killed a 12 year old Iaqi girl with 'warnng shots'. According to CNN "A 12-year-old girl died Monday after she was struck by a warning shot fired as a vehicle accelerated toward an Iraqi police station, said the U.S.-led military coalition."

The only problem is that the girl wasn't even in the car, she "was standing about 100 meters (about 328 feet) behind the vehicle". What happened to the vehicle and its occupants? We don't know. What will happen to the trigger-happy murderer? The "shooting is under investigation" according to "the military". We all know what that means. No action will ever be taken.

-----------------------------------------------Meanwhile back in London....

"A group of leading judges and investigators called yesterday for a “prompt, independent and impartial” investigation into allegations of war crimes committed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza."

15 March 2009

The mafioso Netenyahu shows just how willing he is to continue with the gangster ethos of the Israeli state: he will be appointing a known war criminal to the position of Minister of Defence.

This is the bravest of the brave, yes the very same 'warrior' that recently cancelled a visit to the UK, shitting himself with fear of arrest. Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon, 58, former chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces. Of course cowardly thugs like Ya'alon are only brave when they're surrounded by dozens of their fellow thugs.

Like all true cowards they shit themselves when they're on their own.

Just look what happened to another brave 'warrior': "retired" Major General Doron Almog (note how for the press these criminals are always "retired"?). The Israeli embassy’s military attaché, who was tipped off by an Israeli spy, warned Almog of the impending arrest. Almog evaded arrest by Scotland Yard agents on a war crimes charge when he refused to disembark a flight from Israel.

Ya'alon was recently indicted in Spain for war crimes. of course the chances of this gangster ever being judged for his crimes are remote as these cowards would never dare defend themselves of the charges, they just run. But at least we will be spared the sight of these disgusting criminals strutting around here. They will eventually be confined to the borders of their own gangster state.----------------------------------------

Meanwhile we hear that the gangster state's thugs are"firing live rounds" at unarmed West Bank protesters including US citizens, one of whom they have sent to hospital after firing a smoke canister directly at his head, causing him to suffer "an open wound in his skull and substantial brain damage." According to the AP "skull fragments and a portion of his right frontal lobe were removed. He also suffered major trauma to the bone surrounding his right eye...Nothing was happening in the immediate area where we were, or anywhere else," Silverman said Saturday. Troops kept firing tear gas as Anderson was being moved into a Palestinian ambulance".

12 March 2009

There can now be no doubt any more that Obama is Uncle Tom to the Israel Lobby's slave master.

AP reports "A former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia resigned Tuesday from his new post as chairman of the National Intelligence Council following congressional criticism for comments about the Israeli government and alleged ties to foreign governments.

Charles Freeman's resignation came just hours after National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said at a Senate hearing that he was standing behind his appointment of Freeman as chairman of the council, which analyzes national security issues. Freeman had not yet begun his work as chairman, and Blair said he accepted the resignation "with regret."

The council draws information and analysis from all U.S. intelligence agencies to produce national intelligence estimates. NIE's are the intelligence agencies' most comprehensive statements and are meant to be unvarnished and apolitical."

According to Ray McGovern "The Freeman flip-flop is merely the latest sign that Obama is afraid to take on the Lobby. But the world is watching the new president. Most will interpret the new president's acquiescence in this charade as a sign of weakness – of his not being his own man...Obama now has shown himself easy to push around."

He ends:

"On October 5, 2007 I published an article on Israel's deliberate attempt, on June 8, 1967, to sink the USS Liberty in international waters off the Sinai, killing 34 of the Liberty crew and wounding over 170 in the process.

The lead was:

"So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat – Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say, and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee brags that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again, and not only on Capitol Hill."

The point? In June 1967, the Israelis learned that they could get away, literally, with murder and still not endanger their influence in Washington.

Events of the past weeks demonstrate that they and their Lobby are equally good at character assassination. It is embarrassingly shameful to watch President Obama acquiesce in all of this."

According to McGovern, neo-con Daniel Pipes boasted that the brains behind this gambit was none other than " Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East forum". The same Steve Rosen "who is currently on trial for violations of the Espionage Act involving the transmission of classified information intended for Israel."

Meanwhile, Christopher Ketcham, who writes for Vanity Fair, Harper’s, GQ and many other magazines, has lifted the lid on the real Israeli menace: "Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S."

Ketcham quotes James Bamford "regarded among journalists and intelligence officers as the nation’s expert on the workings of the NSA", as saying "Virtually the entire American telecommunications system," he avers, "is bugged by [Israeli-formed] companies with possible ties to Israel’s eavesdropping agency."

I recommend reading the entire article of you want to know the workings of the gangsters in Israel.

"Whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, you don’t bad-mouth Israel if you want to get ahead," says former CIA counterterrorism officer Philip Giraldi. "Most of the people in the agency were very concerned about Israeli espionage and Israeli actions against U.S. interests. Everybody was aware of it. Everybody hated it. But they wouldn’t get promoted if they spoke out. Israel has a privileged position and that’s the way things are. It’s crazy. And everybody knows it’s crazy."------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the truth is beginning to come out regarding Cheney's assassination squads:

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About Me

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. "

-- John Stuart Mill

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis." -